This month, we bought the following:
“Cold Comfort” by Ray Vukcevich
“Lázaro y Antonio” by Marta Randall
“Thrilling Wonder Tales” by Albert E. Cowdrey
“With Full Power” by Albert E. Cowdrey
“At These Prices” by Esther M. Friesner
“If Angels Fight” by Richard Bowes
“Urdumheim” by Michael Swanwick
“The Mole Cure” by Nancy Farmer
“The Star to Every Wandering Barque” by James Stoddard
“Fragrant Goddess” by Paul Park
“Sweet Trap” (reprint) by Matthew Hughes
In a comment to the post in which I proclaimed the Shimmer Pirate Issue open to submissions, Danny Adams wrote:
This is a hypothetical question for me, but others might be wondering:
If you turned down a pirate story for F&SF, is it still all hands hoay for Shimmer?
That’s a good question, and here’s the answer: If I turned down a pirate story submitted to F&SF, I’d say don’t bother submitting it to Shimmer*. If Gordon, on the other hand, rejected your pirate story, by all means do send it to me. After all, if Gordon rejected it, there’s a good chance** I saw it first and passed it up to him, and so theoretically that means I would have liked it.
If anyone else has any other questions, please feel free to use this as an open thread to fire away.
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*Unless, of course, it’s been so drastically revised and improved that you feel it’s substantially changed as a story.
**I say a “good chance” because there are, of course, submissions Gordon looks at automatically (i.e., they don’t pass through the slush), so of course any stories like that are welcome too.
I just learned about this new workshop via Toby Buckell’s blog. I thought it might interest some of my readers, so I’m spreading the word:
Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop presents
a two-week Master Class in Science Fiction and Fantasy
July 8-21, 2007
taught by
Connie Willis
Walter Jon Williams
and special lecturer
George R.R. MartinTaos Toolbox will be a “graduate” workshop designed to bring your science fiction and fantasy writing to the next level. If you’ve sold a few stories and then stalled out, or if you’ve been to Clarion or Odyssey and want to re-connect with the workshop community, this is the workshop for you!
This is not a workshop for beginners. We won’t teach you correct manuscript format or what an adverb is and why you shouldn’t use one, because we’ll assume that you already know. We want to concentrate on giving talented, burgeoning writers the information necessary to become professionals within the science fiction and fantasy field.
Though short fiction will be enthusiastically received, there will be an emphasis at Taos Toolbox on the craft of the novel, with attention given to such vital topics as plotting, pacing, and selling full-length works.
Students will have deluxe individual rooms in a lodge in Taos Ski Valley, NM, where they can work on their craft amid the beautiful mountain scenery that inspired such diverse creative figures as DH Lawrence, Carl Jung, and Georgia O’Keefe. Almost all meals will be included in the cost of tuition.
Applications will be considered beginning December 1.
Mark the date on your calendar!Contact
wjw@taostoolbox.com
Does anyone know if there’s any kind of poll service that lets you create a poll with over 100 options? Since Gordon was asking on the F&SF message board, I was going to create a F&SF 2006 Favorite Story of the Year poll, but all of the poll services I checked seem to have a limit of 20 or so possible responses.
What was your favorite story in the December 2006 issue? Vote in the poll! Let your voice be heard!
F&SF 12/06: Favorite Story Poll
VOTING HAS CLOSED
Selection
Votes
The Christmas Witch – M. Rickert
34%
Pills Forever – Robert Reed
5%
Damascus – Daryl Gregory
26%
Bye the Rules – Matthew Hughes
8%
John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner – Susanna Clarke
24%
Dazzle the Pundit – Scott Bradfield
0%
I wasn’t overly impressed by any of them.
3%
Dec. 6 — SCI FI Wire published a piece I wrote about David Louis Edelman’s first novel, Infoquake, which he describes as Dune meets The Wall Street Journal.
Dec. 5 — SCI FI Wire published a piece I wrote about Stephen R. Donaldson’s current work in progress, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Science Fiction Weekly just published my interview with Matthew Hughes, author of the new and excellent novel Majestrum, as well as several other fine novels and terrific short stories.
[Excerpt:] I keep an “ideas” file on my hard drive. When I decided, back in 2003, that I should try selling short stories to the magazines in order to raise my profile before Black Brillion came out, I looked through the file and came across a snippet that said something like “Suppose you came to suspect that you were living in a world that was the result of someone’s three wishes going as wrong as they always do?”
I thought, “That’ll do,” and began to sketch out a story set in my Archonate milieu. It needed a point-of-view character, and out popped Henghis Hapthorn, a Sherlock Holmesian sleuth. He is hyper-intelligent, hugely successful as a “freelance discriminator” and gloriously vain about his ability to unravel mysteries. Then he suddenly finds himself transformed into an impoverished toad of a fellow whose shining intellect has been turned down to about 15 watts.
He sets out to investigate, aided by his acerbic integrator, an artificial intelligence he designed and built to be his Dr. Watson. Their search leads him to an unlikely answer–the cause of his disabilities, which are shared by every handsome, wealthy and intelligent man in Olkney, is magic. But magic, as Hapthorn well knows, is all a lot of humbunkery.
This causes a cognitive dissonance for Hapthorn, even as he solves the case, which would not have amounted to much except that when Gordon Van Gelder read the story, entitled “Mastermindless,” he quite loved it, and I recognized that Hapthorn was too good a character to use once and throw away.
Go read the rest and tell me what you think! And go buy Matt’s books!
Science Fiction Weekly just published my interview with Matthew Hughes, author of the new and excellent novel Majestrum, as well as several other fine novels and terrific short stories.
[Excerpt:] I keep an “ideas” file on my hard drive. When I decided, back in 2003, that I should try selling short stories to the magazines in order to raise my profile before Black Brillion came out, I looked through the file and came across a snippet that said something like “Suppose you came to suspect that you were living in a world that was the result of someone’s three wishes going as wrong as they always do?”
I thought, “That’ll do,” and began to sketch out a story set in my Archonate milieu. It needed a point-of-view character, and out popped Henghis Hapthorn, a Sherlock Holmesian sleuth. He is hyper-intelligent, hugely successful as a “freelance discriminator” and gloriously vain about his ability to unravel mysteries. Then he suddenly finds himself transformed into an impoverished toad of a fellow whose shining intellect has been turned down to about 15 watts.
He sets out to investigate, aided by his acerbic integrator, an artificial intelligence he designed and built to be his Dr. Watson. Their search leads him to an unlikely answer–the cause of his disabilities, which are shared by every handsome, wealthy and intelligent man in Olkney, is magic. But magic, as Hapthorn well knows, is all a lot of humbunkery.
This causes a cognitive dissonance for Hapthorn, even as he solves the case, which would not have amounted to much except that when Gordon Van Gelder read the story, entitled “Mastermindless,” he quite loved it, and I recognized that Hapthorn was too good a character to use once and throw away.
Go read the rest and tell me what you think! And go buy Matt’s books!